San Diego to NYC this December 2011 - need suggestions on cool places to stop!

Hi,

My friend and I (two females) are driving from San Diego to NYC next week and would love to know of some really cool cities to stop in. We have about 10 days. We are planning on taking a more southern route. Originally we were thinking:
1) san - albuquerque (just to sleep) two days straight drive - 1 night
2) oklahoma (Oklahoma city or tulsa) or austin - 2 nights
3) nashville - 3 nights
4) charlson, sc - 2 ngihts
5) nyc
but its a lot of driving in between these cities and i'm wondering if anyone can suggest other worthwhile cities that may be closer. The only place we are truly set on is Nashville.

We were thinking Oklahoma or Austin....Also heard Ashville, NC, is beautiful as well as Charleston, SC , and Williamsburg, VA but those last two are kind of out of the way. Is Charleston worth the extra drive, or are there other cities that are worth stopping in to between Nashville and New York? We are socal girls so anything with a east coast/southern vibe and soemthing different would be great! We also will be spending Christmas in one of those cities so keep that in mind:)
Also, does anyone have suggestions for a decent place to stop prior to Oklahoma/Texas? Although it would be brutal we were plnaning on doing two straight days of driving b/c we've heard the better parts (on the southern route) are east of texas. let me know if you know of anything different.
Appreciate any and all suggestions!

First

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Before you even begin to think about adding sightseeing stops, you have to first cut down on something. Even as is, you've scheduled 11 days of your 10 day trip, and that's including impossibly long drives such as San Diego to Albuquerque (770 miles), Oklahoma City to Nashville (680 miles), and Charleston to New York (760 miles). Such long drives simply will not work. You should figure that you can cover no more than about 550 miles on any give day, assuming that you want to complete the journey safely. Only when you have a schedule built around realistic expectations on what you can accomplish can you start to determine how to add some fun.

In addition to what Buck said, its pretty tough to give you suggestions when your options are so vastly up in the air.

For example, if you want to go to Austin, that's going to make for a very different trip than if you go through Oklahoma City. The routes you'd want to use would be completely different, since going to Albuquerque and then Austin would be almost a full extra days worth of driving, compared to just driving straight across I-10.

Also keep in mind that in late December, you've got the chance of seeing snow and or ice at pretty much every point of your route. Being "south" doesn't eliminate that risk by any means (Memphis has seen more snow than Milwaukee so far this year!) so you should give yourself some extra time to deal with potential delays.

Going along with what AZ Buck and Michael have said, you've simply got long driving days. This past summer, we drove from San Diego to NJ in 6 days, stopping in Phoenix, Santa Rosa NM, Sallisaw OK, Cookeville TN, Staunton VA. We did no sightseeing, but we did visit family. The San Diego-->Phoenix jaunt was about the shortest at 375 miles, with Staunton-->NNJ the second shortest at 440 miles.

If we were to go there without stopping in Phoenix, using I-15/40/81/80, we'd stop: Holbrook AZ, Amarillo TX, Memphis, Nashville, Staunton. Near Holbrook is the Petrified Forest NP (open year round), Memphis has Elvis Presley's Graceland, Nashville is the country music capital of the world, and Staunton has a jump over to Skyline Drive (in the event that it is open) in Shenandoah NP.

Definitely leave an extra day or two for the drive, in case of snow days.